Send and Receive Text Messages on Your Apple Computer with iMessage for Mac
Posted on February 19, 2012 at 5:18 am
iMessage is a relatively new feature that allows Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod owners to send text messages between the three devices using Wi-Fi or 3G. Although you may not have noticed iMessage on your Apple products, you have probably still used it, as it automatically engages whenever text messages are sent between two or more Apple devices.
Aside from allowing for free text messaging, iMessage has the distinct advantage of being able to use Wi-Fi to send and receive messages, which is quite cool, particularly if you own a Wi-Fi only iPad.
Apple is now testing iMessage for Mac computers, which lets Mac computer owners communicate with other Macs, and you guessed it, iPhones, iPads, and iPods also. With this introduction of iMessage to the Mac platform, the iChat app gets discontinued.
The beta version of iMessage is available now, but the official version will not likely be released until summer, when Apple is set to release their next OS, Mountain Lion. Like previously done with the jump from OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard, OS Mountain Lion is set to be an updated version of the current Mac operating system Lion, with some additional tweaks, new features, and speed and performance enhancements.
To get started with iMessage for Mac, jump to Apple’s release page and download the beta version. Before installing, make sure that you are up-to-date with the latest software by selecting the Apple logo in the upper, left side of your Mac’s desktop, and selecting Software Update… from the context menu.
Proceed to install iMessage just as you would install any other Mac app. You will be prompted to restart your computer upon successful install. Once your computer starts back up, launch iMessage and sign in using your Apple ID.
Note: If you also own an iPod, iPad or iPod Touch, you will likely want to use the same Apple ID to sign in to iMessage, that you do with your other devices. This will assure that messages are distributed across all of your devices.
Once you have successfully signed in to your Apple account through iMessage, you are ready to start using iMessage.
You can test out iMessage by sending a text to another Apple device, or even by messaging other platforms such as Google Talk. Keep under consideration that this is the beta release, but it should still give you a fairly good idea of what iMessage will be like once Mountain Lion arrives.
Apple has been pushing towards tighter integration between the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computers, and OS X Mountain Lion will push that even further. The next version of OS X will have other iPhone features such as Notification Center and AirPlay Mirroring. Perhaps the next MacBook Airs will be available in 4G? 5G? You can learn more about iMessage and Mountain Lion at Apple’s official website.
» Filed Under Mac OS X
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